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As a former military intelligence officer working at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), I tracked foreign threats to the American homeland, identifying adversaries' plans, intentions, and capabilities that could harm Americans. I predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine more than a year before it happened. In March, in My article on Fox News Digital Under the headline “Ignore FBI Director's Urgent Warning About Terrorist Threats at Our Own Peril,” it predicted terrorist attacks within the United States, of the kind that occurred on New Year's Day in New Orleans and in Las Vegas.
Here are the top three reasons why we are likely to face more terrorism in America this year. And this time, it will be something we've never seen before.
Bureaucratic inertia stifles defense against threats
Bureaucratic inertia prevents government agencies from acting on threats they identify and warn about themselves. During last year's annual congressional press conference on the most significant “global threats” facing the United States, FBI Director Christopher Wray He warned that terrorist threats had reached “a whole other level” of an already escalating situation. Wray noted the “high” threat posed by “domestic violent extremists, that is, jihadist-inspired extremists, domestic violent extremists, foreign terrorist organizations, and state-sponsored terrorist organizations.”
He also specifically pointed to violent gangs and smugglers with ties to ISIS who enter the country through the southern border. This was in March 2024.
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New Orleans Police and federal agents investigate a terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year's Day, Wednesday, January 1, 2025. (Chris Granger/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)
But Ray's concerns did not translate into an enhanced security posture that should have been adopted by intelligence, security, and law enforcement agencies, and that could have avoided the tragic events in New Orleans and Las Vegas, and saved American lives.
Millions of migrants, mostly males of military age, including criminals, terrorists and foreign intelligence agents, continued to flow into our country. High-risk transnational criminal gang from Venezuela, Aragua trainhad established operations in 16 states, including New Jersey and New York, as of November. They attack Americans at will.
To this day, the border has not been fully secured, enabling millions to cross illegally, straining local law enforcement and making communities unsafe. The infamous free mobile app, called the CBP One app, is still widely available on the Apple App Store and Google Play. It is used by foreigners of all stripes who wish to enter the United States to schedule interviews, conducted remotely, to qualify for refugee status and enter our country. It's all thanks to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Has the FBI implemented any of the 18 recommendations made by the 2012 William Webster Commission to Improve and Detect Terrorist Threats? What actions, if any, were taken after Ray's warning in March? These are fair questions that Americans can ask their government. Especially since we've been subjected to two assassination attempts on President-elect Trump, mysterious drones flying over our military installations, and rampant crimes committed by members of a transnational crime syndicate — all since March.
FBI Director Christopher Wray arrives to testify during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on June 4, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
'External' threats appear to have been ignored
There's a whole new threat on the horizon. It has not even made it to the government's to-do list yet. Drone warfare is a prime example of this emerging threat, which is driven by the democratization of high-tech capabilities, such as unmanned aircraft systems (UASs). UAS is a general term for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV – aircraft or drone), but it includes the entire drone operating system, including the ground control station (which hosts the pilot operating the drone); Communications devices (connecting the drone and controller); Payload (cameras, sensors, explosives, etc.); and flight planning software.
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Drones represent the most dangerous threat our nation has ever faced for three reasons. They are commercially available, relatively inexpensive, highly maneuverable, extremely difficult to identify and characterize, and have an almost unlimited payload capacity. You can equip UAS systems with a non-kinetic payload, such as a sensor or camera, or with a kinetic or lethal capability, such as an explosive device, bomb, or weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, or radiological).
A masked Islamic State terrorist holding an ISIS flag in 2015. (History/Universal Image Collection via Getty Images)
Originally used by our military for surveillance purposes and later as a counter-terrorism tool to eliminate terrorist leaders, drones are now widely available and used, including by terrorists. Drone warfare is activated and mastered in The conflict between Russia and Ukraine And in combat zones in the Middle East.
Drones are ideal for hitting soft targets and crowded places in the country. Here's what a 2023 study commissioned by the US Department of Homeland Security noted: “The increasing use of unmanned aerial systems in both the private sector and government operations will likely mean that more people will have access to these systems in the future and the expertise needed to operate them, giving “It makes the use of drones to launch attacks increasingly likely.” The study highlighted the fact that “drones can also give the operator the ability to act anonymously and a greater chance of avoiding detection and capture.” This characteristic could be very attractive to terrorists as well as government actors considered adversaries of the United States.
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As early as 2018, the US government became aware of the drone threat. “The United States is not prepared to confront the growing threat posed by drones,” and was powerless to defend them, Kirstjen M. Nielsen, then Secretary of Homeland Security, wrote in a Washington Post article. She even revealed that “terrorist groups like ISIS aspire to use armed drones against our homeland and American interests abroad.”
However, to this day, we are still vulnerable to drone attacks. It has become very clear to everyone how helpless we are to defend against such attacks during recent mysterious drone incidents. For weeks since November, unidentified drones have reportedly been flying over military sites and critical infrastructure facilities in several East Coast states, including New Jersey and New York. Neither federal nor state security agencies have put an end to the So. Even the White House and the Pentagon admitted not knowing where these drones came from.
A Ukrainian air intelligence soldier carries a drone in the direction of Bakhmut, Ukraine, on May 10, 2024. (Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The politicization of intelligence motives leads to the wrong goals
Now the entire government security apparatus has become politicized, having shifted its focus from foreign threats, such as terrorists, to American dissidents. Instead of identifying and stopping those who insist on harming Americans, our government agencies have been targeting our own citizens who oppose the spread of woke ideologies in our society. Catholics, whose religious beliefs prevent them from accepting things like transgenderism, and parents, who protest the brainwashing of their children into left-wing ideologies, such as Critical Race Theory (CRT), sweeping through our public schools, are now viewed by government agencies as domestic threat actors.
This hideous politicization comes from the top. President Biden has worked to reduce the terrorist threat facing his nation, including the threat from ISIS. In June 2021, Biden said: “According to the intelligence community, terrorism stemming from white supremacy is the deadliest threat to the homeland today. Not ISIS, not Al Qaeda — white supremacy.” Is it any wonder that the FBI agent in charge initially ruled out any connection between the New Orleans attacker and terrorism or ISIS? This is despite the fact that the attacker, Shams al-Din Jabbar, 42, from Texas, had an ISIS flag on his Ford pickup truck, which was deliberately rammed into a group of civilians celebrating the New Year in the French Quarter, resulting in 14 people killed. .
Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan, the U.S. Army doctor convicted of fatally shooting 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5, 2009. (U.S. State University of the Health Sciences via Getty Images)
Likewise, the FBI failed to identify the Army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Hassan, who in 2009 shot and killed 13 people and wounded 31 others at Fort Hood, Texas, as a person involved in terrorist activities – despite the fact that Hasan was in regular contact with the FBI. Known terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki. In his correspondence, Hassan, an American-born Muslim, discussed suicide bombers and whether it was permissible to “kill innocent people for a valuable purpose.”
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According to a 2012 report by the William Webster Commission on FBI, Counterterrorism, Intelligence, and events at Fort Hood, Texas on November 5, 2009, FBI agents on the Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego were aware that Hassan had contacted Al-Awlaki. Several times before firing. However, the FBI's Washington field office determined that Hassan “was not involved in terrorist activities.” Therefore, the FBI did not issue a warning about Hassan's terrorist ties to the Department of the Army and the Pentagon, both of which classified the incident as workplace violence rather than an act of terrorism. The 2012 report made 18 formal recommendations to the FBI for improving terrorist threat detection.
The incoming Trump administration has promised to depoliticize government agencies. Nominating Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat, as Director of National Intelligence, as part of a Republican administration, is a step in the right direction. Intelligence is supposed to be nonpartisan. Intelligence officers should not be afraid to speak truth to power even if their line of analysis conflicts with the policies of the sitting president. But eliminating government inertia will be a much longer task. Let's see if DOGE can force government bureaucrats to erect defenses against the drone threat and save Americans.
